Photo by Jimmy Woo

Governor Gavin Newsom is standing his ground, with the support of other state officials, against the extradition of a Sonoma County doctor for sending abortion pills through the mail to a patient in Louisiana where they're illegal, citing a California telemedicine abortion protection law.

As SFist reported last week, officials in Louisiana are pushing California to allow Dr. Rémy Coeytaux, a Stanford-trained doctor in the Sonoma County town of Healdsburg, to face charges for “criminal abortion” in violation of Louisiana law. As KRON4 reports, the violation carries a penalty of one to 50 years of hard labor. Louisiana was the first in the country to classify abortion pills as “controlled dangerous substances,” even though they're considered very safe, per KRON4.

Per KRON4, Louisiana officials, who were able to locate Coeytaux through the tracking number on the package containing the pills, determined that the woman obtained them through an Austria-based company called AidAccess.

As KQED reports, Newsom is refusing to send Coeytaux to Louisiana, emphasizing that California enacted a set of laws geared toward protecting abortion providers from out-of-state legal action. Per KQED, Louisiana officials reportedly doxxed Coeytaux by posting his personal information online, potentially endangering his life.

“Louisiana’s request is denied,” Newsom wrote in a statement, per KRON4. “My position on this has been clear since 2022: We will not allow extremist politicians from other states to reach into California and try to punish doctors based on allegations that they provided reproductive health care services.”

“Not today. Not ever,” he concluded. “We will never be complicit with Trump’s war on women.”

“I am proud that our Governor is standing up to attempts to drag this country backward by criminalizing health care and threatening doctors for doing their jobs,” said East Bay Assemblymember Mia Bonta in a statement. “California saw this grim reality coming, and our law is clear: our state will not comply with extreme, bad-faith extradition requests designed to punish medical professionals for  providing lawful, essential reproductive care.”

“Abortion is health care, protected under California’s Constitution, and California will stand firmly in defense of patients, providers, and that fundamental truth,” Bonta continued.

“California is a safe haven for reproductive rights,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta wrote on X Wednesday. “We will not be bullied by anti-abortion states.”

Image: ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND - APRIL 13: In this photo illustration, a bottle of Misoprostol tablets are displayed at a family planning clinic on April 13, 2023 in Rockville, Maryland. A Massachusetts appeals court temporarily blocked a Texas-based federal judge’s ruling that suspended the FDA’s approval of the abortion drug Mifepristone, which is part of a two-drug regimen to induce an abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy in combination with the drug Misoprostol. (Photo illustration by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

This post has been updated with a revised quote from Assemblymember Mia Bonta, per her press release.

Previously: Louisiana Officials Have Indicted a Bay Area Doctor for Prescribing Abortion Pills

The state of Louisiana is looking to extradite a Sonoma County doctor whom they're accusing of providing abortion pills to a Louisiana woman — something that state officials already tried to do with a New York doctor last year.

This all seems like some grand, red state-versus-blue state political theater, as Governor Jeff Landry of Louisiana and Attorney General Liz Murrill have announced an indictment and extradition order for Dr. Rémy Coeytaux of Sonoma County. Much like with the drama Landry and Murrill concocted last year with an extradition for a New York State doctor, which New York Governor Kathy Hochul has refused to comply with, this order is also likely to go nowhere thanks to California's abortion shield law.

The New York Times reports that the Louisiana indictment came with an extradition request that Governor Landry has already said he would sign, much like he signed the previous one for the New York doctor.

The Center for Reproductive Rights, speaking on behalf of Dr. Coeytaux, issued a statement saying that the allegations against him "are unproven and should not be reported as fact." The organization is representing Dr. Coeytaux in another case brought by the boyfriend of a Texas woman who was apparently assisted in her abortion with pills obtained by mail.

Nancy Northup, the president and CEO of the the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement that "the state of Louisiana is going after doctors for allegedly harming women, yet they are enforcing an abortion ban that puts women’s lives at risk every day."

As the Chronicle notes, Murrill borrowed a page from the antiabortion movement in comparing the mailing of FDA-approved abortion medication to narcotics trafficking, saying "This is not healthcare; it’s drug dealing,” and, “Individuals who flagrantly and intentionally violate our laws by sending illegal abortion pills into our state placing women in danger."

The state of Louisiana has classified the drugs mifepristone and misoprostol as dangerous controlled substances.

Northrup added in her statement, "Thousands of women seek abortion pills every year because abortion is banned in their state, and that will not change until abortion is legal everywhere."

Previously: California Planned Parenthood Loses $300 Million In Federal Funding In Latest Legal Blow

Top image: Attorney General of Louisiana Liz Murrill speaks to the media during a press conference on January 1, 2025 in New Orleans, Louisiana. At least 10 people were killed on Bourbon Street when a person allegedly drove into a crowd in the early morning hours of New Year's Day Dozens more were injured after a suspect in a rented pickup truck allegedly drove around barricades and through a crowd of New Year's revelers on Bourbon Street.  (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images)

The Republicans' abortion fight has just struck close to home with five California locations of Planned Parenthood shutting their doors due to federal funding cuts, including one in South San Francisco.

We learned earlier this week that, following the passage of Trump's Big Beautiful Bill and a federal court order pertaining to it, the government had stripped Planned Parenthood of its Medicaid funding for any clinics that provide abortions. This amounts to about $300 million in lost Medicaid funds for Planned Parenthood's California clinics in California, which means that low-income women seeking any sort of healthcare from those clinics will likely need to seek that care elsewhere.

A federal judge issued a preliminary order this week in a case brought on behalf of all Planned Parenthood affiliates nationwide that declined to provide immediate injunctive relief for large clinics that provide abortions with regard to Medicaid funding — though it did allow federal funding to continue for those clinics operating in states that already ban abortion. A final ruling in the case will come at a later date.

The immediate result, as the Chronicle reports, is that Planned Parenthood Mar Monte — the organization's largest affiliate, which has 35 clinics throughout Northern and Central California — is closing five of its locations, including its South San Francisco office. The other four are in San Mateo, Santa Cruz, Gilroy, and Madera, and it seems like more may follow.

Planned Parenthood Mar Monte tells the Chronicle that in just one week of not being able to bill Medicaid, it lost $1.7 million in care costs that were covered without reimbursement.

Andrew Adams, the chief of staff for Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, tells the Chronicle, "It’s just not sustainable. We can’t keep our doors open if we continue doing that."

In a statement, a spokesperson for Governor Gavin Newsom says, "Trump says he’s pro-life — just not the lives of women or anyone needing cancer screenings. California is working with Planned Parenthood to do what we can in this tough budget environment to protect access to care."

There remains a decent chance that the judge in the case brought by the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, US District Court Judge Indira Talwani, will rule in favor of Planned Parenthood and grant the organization preliminary injunctive relief, which would allow the reimbursements to continue.

For now, only clinics that do not provide abortions and those so small that they did not exceed $800,000 in Medicaid reimbursements in 2023, are able to continue getting federal funding.

"This is about patients and their right to get care — no matter their insurance," said the Parenthood Federation of America along with its co-plaintiffs, Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, and Planned Parenthood Association of Utah, in a joint statement this week. "The court has not yet ruled on whether it will grant preliminary injunctive relief to other members. We remain hopeful that the court will grant this relief. There will be nothing short of a public health crisis if Planned Parenthood members are allowed to be 'defunded.'"

According to Planned Parenthood, abortions represent only about 10% of its services annually. The majority of its services are primary care checkups, contraceptive care, STD testing and treatment, and cancer screenings. And federal law already prohibits the use of federal funds to cover abortions.

"The harsh reality is, the Planned Parenthood defund will be felt in every corner of the state and will disproportionately impact people who have low incomes, rely on Medicaid programs, or have no other options for health care,” said Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California president and chief executive Jodi Hicks in a statement.

Previously: California Planned Parenthood Loses $300 Million In Federal Funding In Latest Legal Blow

Photo of the South San Francisco Planned Parenthood clinic via Google Street View

A US District Court ruling this week strips every Planned Parenthood location in the state of California of all federal funding, which amounts to about $300 million statewide, though that loss could still be overturned in a future ruling.

Reproductive health services provider Planned Parenthood was already reeling from a late June Supreme Court decision that allowed states to withhold Medicaid funds from Planned Parenthood. Then Trump’s so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed a week later, and one provision in that legislation banned Medicaid reimbursements for any nonprofit health clinics that also provided abortions.

So the Planned Parenthood Federation of America sued the federal government (or specifically, the Health and Human Services Department), arguing the cuts were unconstitutional, and would result in the spread of STDs and cancer. But CalMatters reports that in a Monday preliminary ruling, US District Court Judge Indira Talwani issued an order that cost Planned Parenthood California its entire $300 million in federal funding, albeit in a preliminary order that could be reversed.  

“The harsh reality is, the Planned Parenthood defund will be felt in every corner of the state and will disproportionately impact people who have low incomes, rely on Medicaid programs, or have no other options for health care,” Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California president and chief executive Jodi Hicks said in a statement to CalMatters.

Though the Associated Press describes the decision as a “partial victory” for Planned Parenthood.  In the AP’s words, the ruling preserves funding for any Planned Parenthood clinics that “don’t provide abortion care or didn’t meet a threshold of at least $800,000 in Medicaid reimbursements in a given year.”

But that doesn’t save the funding for any California Planned Parenthood clinics, all of which do provide abortion services. The Health and Human Services Department has indicated they will appeal the decision because it preserves funding for some Planned Parenthood clinics, and they want to see Planned Parenthood receiving zero federal dollars.

Though meanwhile, Judge Talwani wrote in her decision that Planned Parenthood’s original lawsuit arguments have a “substantial likelihood of success” in her court, and all of these funding cuts could end up eventually being reversed.

“The court has not yet ruled on whether it will grant preliminary injunctive relief to other members,” Planned Parenthood said in a statement after the ruling. “We remain hopeful that the court will grant this relief. There will be nothing short of a public health crisis if Planned Parenthood members are allowed to be ‘defunded.’”

Related: Supreme Court Allows States to Withhold Medicaid Funds From Planned Parenthood [SFist]

Image: SAN RAFAEL, CALIFORNIA - JUNE 26: A sign is posted in front of a Planned Parenthood health center on June 26, 2025 in San Rafael, California. A Supreme Court ruling will allow states to cut Medicaid funds to reproductive health provider Planned Parenthood, which will disqualify Medicaid patients from obtaining health care services from Planned Parenthood providers if the funding has been cut by the state. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Today’s annual March for Life in San Francisco attracted thousands of participants emboldened by the recent presidential election who reportedly arrived by bus from cities like Sacramento and Fresno. Seven members of far-right neo-fascist group Proud Boys were also in attendance.

The event, which began with a rally at Civic Center Plaza, followed by a march down Market Street to the Embarcadero, featured young participants, many identifying as the “pro-life generation,” holding banners and wearing religious-themed apparel. Vendors also capitalized on the event, selling items such as “I {heart} Jesus” hats alongside Trump merchandise.

About 100 counter-protesters gathered across the barricade, holding signs with slogans like “Not your uterus, not your choice” and chanting phrases such as “Not the church. Not the state. People must decide their fate.” Organizer Meredith Hartsell-Cooper argued that even anti-abortion activists might someday need reproductive healthcare.

According to The Standard, the march culminated in a culture clash as pop-up drag performer Shane Zaldivar, dressed as the Statue of Liberty, was swarmed by hundreds of anti-abortion protestors while singing Ariana Grande’s “God is a Woman” and spitting on a torn American flag.

Image: Abortion rights activists at a Women's March Action Rally for reproductive rights in Los Angeles. (Photo by Sarah Morris/Getty Images)

The state attorney general has filed a lawsuit against Humboldt County's Providence St. Joseph Hospital for refusing to provide an emergency abortion on a night when the mother might have died without one.

California is obviously a very pro-choice state on the abortion issue, and has not seen women dying because of abortion restrictions the way we’re seeing in some red states. But we apparently did nearly have a woman die because of abortion restrictions this past February, when Anna Nusslock, 15 weeks pregnant, was informed that her unborn twins would both not survive, and that she was at risk of death herself if she did not abort them immediately.

The Catholic hospital Providence St. Joseph Hospital in Humboldt County’s Eureka still refused to perform the abortion procedure, but now Bay City News reports that California Attorney General Rob Bonta is suing the hospital for refusing to perform the life-saving abortion.

“It is damning that here in California, where abortion care is a constitutional right, we have a hospital implementing a policy that’s reminiscent of heartbeat laws in extremist red states,” Bonta said in a Monday press release announcing the lawsuit. “With today’s lawsuit, I want to make this clear for all Californians: abortion care is healthcare. You have the right to access timely and safe abortion services. At the California Department of Justice, we will use the full force of this office to hold accountable those who, like Providence, are breaking the law.”

Nusslock (seen above) was enduring heavy pain and bleeding after her water broke prematurely with the two twins with whom she was pregnant. She was diagnosed with previable preterm premature rupture of membranes (PPROM), and told the twins would surely not survive. Moreover, she was told she might not survive either. But the hospital insisted one of the twins still had a “detectable heart tone,” and refused to perform the procedure.

She asked if she could drive to San Francisco to get the abortion, and says her doctor told her “If you try to drive, you will hemorrhage and die before you get to a place that can help you." She was able to procure the procedure at the Mad River Community Hospital in Arcata, which was only 20 minutes away.

"Without abortion care I risked infection or hemorrhage, both of which are so dangerous to my health and my life and these risks increase with every minute that passed," Nusslock said at a Monday press conference. "I needed an abortion to protect myself against these risks, and I needed an abortion so that my husband didn't lose both of his daughters and his wife in one night.”

Bonta’s lawsuit also seeks an injunction and a court order that the hospital perform emergency abortions while the case plays out. Providence St. Joseph Hospital did not respond to Bay City News’ request for comment.

Related: Supreme Court Briefly Leaks Decision Indicating It Will Temporarily Allow Emergency Abortions to Continue In Idaho [SFist]

Image: @AGRobBonta via Twitter

The Supreme Court may be sidestepping a thorny abortion case, but the result appears will be that a lower court's pause on Idaho's near-total abortion ban will continue.

A Supreme Court clerk or employee messed up Wednesday morning and prematurely uploaded a decision in a case that apparently wasn't supposed to come out today. That decision was in Moyle v. United States and Idaho v. United States, a pair of cases pertaining to emergency abortions in Idaho. The very red state passed a near total ban on all abortion procedures in 2020, which included ban on emergency abortions to protect the health of a mother.

This was a so-called trigger law, titled the Defense of Life Act, and it passed with a provision that it would take effect if and when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade — which happened in June 2022.

The law makes exceptions for rape and incest, and to save the life of a mother, but there is no exception for protecting a mother's health if an when terminating a pregnancy would be part of the standard of care. NBC News gives the example of a pregnant woman whose water broke at 20 weeks, which would put her at risk of infection. That woman was airlifted out of Idaho earlier this year in order to receive hospital care in another state, because an abortion in that case would have violated the state law.

A lower court issued an injunction that protected doctors from prosecution in such cases, after the state was sued by the federal government, however the Supreme Court lifted that injunction in January pending the hearing of this case. Since then, multiple women have had to be flown out of state to receive emergency prenatal care.

The Supreme Court, while apparently not ruling on the merits of the case, appears poised to let that lower court's injunction stand, allowing emergency abortions to continue in Idaho, for now.

After the decision was briefly posted and removed from the Supreme Court website, the court issued a rote comment. "The Court’s Publications Unit inadvertently and briefly uploaded a document to the Court’s website,” spokesperson for the court Patricia McCabe said in a statement. "The Court’s opinion in Moyle v. United States and Idaho v. United States will be issued in due course."

Bloomberg Law caught the flub and published what the draft ruling said. It is not clear if the ruling was final, but it was quickly removed. A copy of the ruling is here, and it shows Justice Elena Kagan writing the majority opinion — which appears to be 6-3, with Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch dissenting — dismissing the case as "improvidently granted." Such a dismissal occurs when circumstances surrounding a case change, or when the court learns new details that cause it to reconsider having taken it up — which Justice Katanji Brown Jackson calls out in a partial dissent as a copout in this case.

"This Court typically dismisses cases as improvidently granted when 'circumstances... which were not fully apprehended at the time certoriori was granted'," Justice Jackson writes. "This procedural mechanism should be reserved for that end — not turned into a tool for the Court to use to avoid issues that it does not wish to decide."

The case centers on the conflict between Idaho's abortion law and the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), which was passed in 1986. That law was passed to prevent hospitals from refusing to provide emergency treatment to uninsured patients, and it was used in a novel way in the Idaho case to argue for a federal right to an emergency pregnancy termination.

Justice Jackson contends that "The importance of recognizing Congress's judgments in EMTALA remains as imperative as ever."

"Today’s decision is not a victory for pregnant patients in Idaho. It is delay," Jackson writes. "While this court dawdles and the country waits, pregnant people experiencing emergency medical conditions remain in a precarious position, as their doctors are kept in the dark about what the law requires."

Justice Samuel Alito wrote the dissent, according to the copy of the ruling, huffing that, "Apparently, the court has simply lost the will to decide the easy but emotional and highly politicized question that the case presents." He called the court's action "baffling," and "an about-face."

The Supreme Court, at least according to Alito, was supposed to be "getting out of the business" of abortion after the 2022 Dobbs decision, but like with so many staunch conservative viewpoints, there was little foresight there. Naturally, the overturning of Roe has led to a thicket of legal issues and unresolved questions, including about so-called medical abortion — abortion pills — about which the court also took up a case this term. The court ruled unanimously earlier this month that plaintiffs in that case lacked standing to block women's access to the drug mifepristone — another example of a side-stepping ruling that stops short of saying the pills should remain legal.

A number of major decisions are still set to be announced in the coming days, including on the question of Donald Trump's claim of total immunity from prosecution while serving as president. The court is also set to rule on a potentially very impactful case regarding homelessness and the ability of cities to enforce no-camping laws.

Top image: An abortion rights advocate participates in a protest outside of the U.S. Supreme Court Building on June 24, 2024 in Washington, DC. Abortion rights and anti-abortion rights activists demonstrated outside the U.S. Supreme Court to mark two years since the court's Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling, which reversed federal protections for access to abortions. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Top image: Demonstrators participate in a abortion-rights rally outside the Supreme Court as the justices of the court hear oral arguments in the case of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine on March 26, 2024 in Washington, DC. The case challenges the 20-plus-year legal authorization by the FDA of mifepristone, a commonly used abortion medication. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

In advance of the Supreme Court hearing arguments Tuesday on their first abortion case since overturning Roe v. Wade, a group of activists took to the SF Federal Building Sunday to defend access to the abortion pill mifepristone.

On Tuesday, the US Supreme Court will begin hearing arguments on the first abortion case that’s come before them since they overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022. This case has the name Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v FDA, and it will effectively rule on the legality of the abortion pill mifepristone. Realize that the court’s decision will affect all 50 states, even those with abortion protections written to state law.

KGO reports that abortion rights activists rallied Sunday at the SF Federal Building in support of the abortion pill. "What we're concerned about is that given the Supreme Court's past record, anything is possible," National Mobilization for Reproductive Justice representative Nancy Kato told KGO.

The FDA approved mifepristone in the year 2000. In 2016 and 2021, that agency expanded its legal use to be distributed by mail, for mifepristone to be prescribed by nurses, and for mifepristone to be taken up to 10 weeks into a pregnancy. But a few lower courts have attempted to shoot down some of those rights, hence the current Supreme Court case.

"The lower court of appeals essentially rescinded some power in earlier regulations of the food and drug administration — and the petitioners, the Biden Administration, the FDA and others are arguing that is unconstitutional," Santa Clara University constitutional law expert Margaret Russell told KGO. "It has impact not just on this particular medication but potentially on the power of the Food and Drug Administration in other areas that would be of benefit to the health of women and everyone."

According to NPR, 63% of all abortions are medicated, primarily using mifepristone. And a Supreme Court ruling could affect or even eliminate access to mifepristone, even in states with enshrined abortion protections.  

"I think there's been to some degree a false sense of security created by ballot initiatives [protecting abortion access] in some states," UC Davis law professor Mary Zieglertold said to NPR. "People are thinking, 'What happens in the Supreme Court doesn't really matter because I live in California or I live in Michigan or I live in Ohio' – that, essentially, if you voted for a ballot initiative or you live in a blue state, you don't have to worry about it."

"This is a reminder that what happens in the federal courts can override what voters decide," she told that outlet.

Related: Abortion Rights Activists Plan Rally at SF Federal Building Tuesday [SFist]

Image: SAN FRANCISCO - JANUARY 22: Two women carry a sign during a pro-choice march January 22, 2004 in San Francisco. People all over the United States celebrated the 31st anniversary of the 1973 Roe vs Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Vice President Kamala Harris became the first vice president or president ever to visit an abortion clinic on Thursday, stopping in at a Planned Parenthood in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Harris, an Oakland native and a longtime figure in Bay Area and California politics before becoming VP, spoke to reporters in the lobby of the clinic, calling abortion opponents right-wing "extremists."

"These attacks against an individual’s right to make decisions about their own body are outrageous and, in many instances, just plain old immoral," Harris said, per the New York Times. "How dare these elected leaders believe they are in a better position to tell women what they need, to tell women what is in their best interest. We have to be a nation that trusts women."

As the Times notes, the 2022 Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade has "upended" the older political calculus around abortion — with Democrats in earlier years taking much more of a cautious approach to supporting abortion rights, and using slogans like "safe, legal and rare."

Harris's appearance at a Planned Parenthood is a clear election-year campaign stop, connecting the Democratic Party firmly with legal access to abortion in a state where Planned Parenthood has a significant presence. But as a map in the lobby of the St. Paul clinic shows, neighboring states like Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota have no abortion clinics, because their state governments have severely restricted abortion access in the wake of the 2022 decision.

Abortion rights are expected to be a key issue for Democrats this year, and especially for Joe Biden as he seeks reelection. But, as the Times notes, Biden, while being more forceful in his rhetoric around restoring a federal right to abortion, remains reluctant to use the word "abortion," and remains a devout Catholic who has his own religious objections to it.

In continued comments, Harris said of Planned Parenthood, "Please do understand that when we talk about a clinic such as this, it is absolutely about health care and reproductive health care. So everyone get ready for the language: uterus. Issues like fibroids. We can handle this."

Harris added, "What happened here in Minnesota with the re-election of the governor and the turning of the State Legislature, is what has led to ensuring that these fundamental rights are intact and are protected. Elections matter."

Previously: VP Kamala Harris Has Now Cast More Tiebreaking Senate Votes Than Any VP In U.S. History

Top image: U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks on the 59th commemoration of the Bloody Sunday Selma bridge crossing on March 3, 2024 in Selma, Alabama. Harris called for an "immediate ceasefire" in Gaza in her remarks but reiterated that Israel has "a right to defend itself." (Photo by Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images)

The annual Walk for Life is happening on Market Street in San Francisco, and it's all but guaranteed to be a wet one — but the godly among them are praying that rays of sunshine will come through like they apparently did a few years ago.

It always feels like one of the most discordant moments of the year when evangelical Christians and other anti-abortion folk from around the Bay Area and beyond descend on our local Sodom called San Francisco to rally against women ending their pregnancies.

Well, they'll be back at it, "rain or shine," on Saturday, January 20, and they're likely going to see some, if not a lot, of rain when they "walk for life" on Market Street in the afternoon.

The forecast has rain coming through in the morning, another 30% chance of rain around 1 or 2 p.m. when the march is happening, and then higher chances of more rain returning around 5 or 6 p.m.

But the language on the Walk for Life website makes it sound like any break in the rain will be by God's divine providence.

"Remember a few years ago when it was forecasted to have thunderstorms during the Walk and we all prayed and the skies opened up for us and not a drop of rain fell during our event? We do," the organizers say. "While we’re confident that we will have good weather on Saturday (forecasts are now saying only a 5% chance of rain during the time of the Walk), please come prepared for a little rain. If the folks on the east coast can march in freezing temperatures (literally), then we can show our support through a little rain."

Yes, the D.C. March for Life happened today amid pretty snowy, chilly conditions, as the Associated Press reports. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a vocal anti-abortion guy, was one of the featured speakers at the National Mall, and the message of the event was generally "our work is not done" after the fall of Roe v. Wade.

Anyone thinking they would like to brave the weather and go confront the anti-abortion marchers in SF should know that everyone there is instructed not to look at, respond, or even acknowledge counter-protesters who show up — so they're going to pretend they're not listening if you're talking to them.

Also, organizers say, "To maintain the peaceful and prayerful attitude of the Walk, please do not bring any graphic images of abortions to the Walk."

The Walk for Life will begin with an "info faire" at Civic Center Plaza at 11 a.m. Saturday, followed by a rally at 12:30, and the march down Market begins at 1:30 p.m.

If you need another reason to love Peninsula and East Bay congressional representatives Jackie Speier and Barbara Lee, they just blocked a street and got arrested Tuesday at a Washington, D.C. abortion rights rally.

It is a fair argument to complain that in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, that Democrats in Washington, D.C. aren't doing much of anything. But that argument would not fairly apply today, as 17 congressional Democrats got arrested Tuesday for blocking the street at an abortion protest outside the Supreme Court building, according to CBS News, among them AOC and Ilhan Omar.

And Bay Area represennnnnt; The Hill adds that Peninsula and South Bay representative Jackie Speier was also arrested, while NBC News adds that Oakland representative Barbara Lee was arrested Tuesday too.  

The Capitol Police announced shortly after 12 noon ET Tuesday that “We made a total of 35 arrests for Crowding, Obstructing or Incommoding,” and that “That arrest number includes 17 Members of Congress.”

As several folks noted on Twitter, that’s more people than the Capitol Police arrested on the day of the January 6 insurrection.

The above tweet from Rep. Speier was apparently posted a couple hours before the arrests. But a subsequent tweet later in the afternoon acknowledges her arrest, declaring “Proud to march with my Democratic colleagues and get arrested for women’s rights, abortion rights, the rights for people to control their own bodies and the future and our democracy!”

Similarly, the above tweet from Rep. Barbara Lee was posted prior to the arrest, but does show her blocking the street, which is what she was arrested for. But one can clearly see Rep. Lee being arrested at the :37 mark of the NBC Bay Area video below.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, this was all just a glorified photo op. But it was a good photo op, they got arrested! So who photo-opped it best?

Michigan Rep. Andy Levin (D) certainly scores well by impersonating the January 6 Josh Hawley insurrection fist. But the clear winner here is Rep. Ilhan Omar, whom NBC News has this fabulous photo of her smiling for the camera while the cops process her arrest paperwork.

Related: Bay Area Revs Up to Rally for Abortion Rights, Here’s Where Friday‘s Protests Are Planned [SFist]

Top image: Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) (Center) leads House Democrats to join an abortion rights protest with the Center for Popular Democracy Action (CPDA) in front of the U.S. Supreme Court Building on July 19, 2022 in Washington, DC. The CPDA held the demonstration with the lawmakers to protest the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Big Brother is declaring it’s a thoughtcrime to mention the availability of abortion pills on Meta’s Facebook or Instagram platforms. But the exact same posts are staying up if they substitute the words “guns” or “weed” for “abortion pills.”  

The United States Supreme Court handed down its decision overturning Roe v. Wade on Friday morning, prior to 9 a.m. PT. The reaction of the bots at Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram was immediate, according to multiple news outlets, almost as if these tech platforms had “trigger laws” of their own waiting for the decision to come down, just like multiple states with Republican-controlled legislatures.

Vice’s Motherboard explains their experience as such (it's also seen above): “On Friday a Motherboard reporter attempted to post the phrase ‘abortion pills can be mailed’ on Facebook using a burner account. The post was flagged within seconds as violating the site's community standards, specifically the rules against buying, selling, or exchanging medical or non-medical drugs. The reporter was given the option to ‘disagree’ with the decision or ‘agree’ with it. After they chose ‘disagree,’ the post was removed.”

“Flagged within seconds.” Boy that’s pretty quick compared to, say, white nationalist groups whose posts inciting violence stay up for days, weeks, and sometimes forever.

When the removed posts were called out on Twitter, Meta’s policy communications director Andy Stone explained that “Content that attempts to buy, sell, trade, gift, request or donate pharmaceuticals is not allowed. Content that discusses the affordability and accessibility of prescription medication is allowed. We've discovered some instances of incorrect enforcement and are correcting these.”

Fast forward three days, and an Associated Press reporter tried a similar experiment.

“On Monday, an AP reporter tested how the company would respond to a similar post on Facebook, writing: ‘If you send me your address, I will mail you abortion pills,’” the outlet says.

“The post was removed within one minute.”

And in the interest of proper experimentation, they replaced the term “abortion pills” with other terms that absolutely should have set off content moderation bots.

“When the AP reporter made the same exact post but swapped out the words ‘abortion pills’ for ‘a gun,’ the post remained untouched,” according to the Associated Press. “A post with the same exact offer to mail ‘weed’ was also left up and not considered a violation.”

A separate AP report shows similar things are happening on Instagram. An account called We are Childfree started seeing its frankly innocuous posts that just connected people to resources started getting labeled with “This photo may contain graphic or violent content.” Per the AP, that page’s most recent posts are being blocked, to which Instagram responds above, “We're looking into this bug and working on a fix now.”

“This can all take place behind the scenes, and it can be attributed to a glitch,”  Cornell University professor Brooke Erin Duffy said. “We don't know what happened. That’s what’s chilling about this.”

They can blame a glitch, but a far likelier explanation is that Mark Zuckerberg and the Meta higher-ups are terrified of conservative criticism, and the right has used the “social media is censoring us” card so effectively that Mark Zuckerberg gets played like a banjo at the bluegrass festival whenever Republican elites complain. And at this moment it time, don’t be surprised if we see unprecedented volumes of censored posts and “Facebook jail” applied to users who discuss abortion rights and access.

Related: Abortion Rights Amendment Heads to November Ballot [SFist]

Image: WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 29: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies via video conference during an Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law Subcommittee hearing on "Online platforms and market power. Examining the dominance of Amazon, Facebook, Google and Apple" on Capitol Hill on July 29, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Graeme Jennings - Pool/Getty Images)

Pride Weekend just became protest weekend after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and we’ve collected all of Friday’s planned Bay Area actions and protests scheduled to go down as their announcements come in.  

After Roe v. Wade was officially overturned early Friday morning, you quickly got a sense that the Trump-packed Supreme Court isn’t going to stop there; they will go after same-sex marriage, they will go after contraception, they will go after any interracial marriage that is not Clarence and Ginni Thomas. As seen below, they’re already out protesting in Washington, D.C., and the protests start here in the Bay Area late Friday afternoon. (SFist already observed helicopters in the SF skies shortly after 2 p.m.)    

We’re listing Friday’s San Francisco and Oakland reproductive rights rallies by date and time below. Many have links, and some ask you to register, which we don’t recommend doing if you don’t know the organizations. SFGate and the Oaklandside have provided protest roundups in San Francisco and the East Bay, and there are a few more in other Bay Area communities we’ve thrown in too.

Roe. v Wade Overturned: Protest to Protect the Right to Choose (4 p.m., Ferry Building)

This Ferry Building rally looks to be a pre-rally that’s planning to march and join the others. Per their Facebook event description:” We will walk from the Embarcadero to City Hall at 4:15pm to join Planned Parenthood California and Women’s March SF at 5pm.”

Rally for Abortion Justice (5 p.m., City Hall)

The official Planned Parenthood of Northern California rally is at 5 p.m. Friday afternoon at City Hall, there is not a speaker list announced yet.

Supreme Court Overturns Roe v. Wade! (5 p.m., Phillip Burton Federal Building)

Not sure whether this rally at the Phillip Burton Federal Building at 450 Golden Gate Avenue is organized by IndyBay or just being promoted by them, but their IndyBay writeup notes that “A march, with civil disobedience, will follow.”

Emergency Response in Defense of Abortion Rights (5 p.m., Powell and Market streets)

We don’t see an official organizer listed for this Powell and Market Street rally, and it’s unclear whether it’s a march or meetup.

Decision Day Action in Oakland: We Won't Go Back (5 p.m. Frank Ogawa Plaza)

The big Oakland rally Decision Day Action in Oakland is at Frank Ogawa Plaza, which if you’re not familiar, is outside Oakland City Hall and two blocks up from the 12th Street BART station.

There are also Friday rallies planned in Napa and San Leandro (4 p.m.) and in El Cerrito and San Rafael (5 p.m.)

Additionally, KQED has an excellent roundup covering COVID safety and knowing your legal rights when attending protests during this particular era.

Related: Clarence Thomas Openly Admits He's Dying For the Supreme Court to Overturn Gay Marriage Decision [SFist]

Image: WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 24: Abortion rights demonstrator Elizabeth White leads a chant in response to the Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on June 24, 2022 in Washington, DC. The Court's decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health overturns the landmark 50-year-old Roe v Wade case and erases a federal right to an abortion. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)